Principal Investigator Dimitris Bertsimas
Co-investigator Vivek Farias
Professors Bertsimas and Farias tackle the challenge of building an efficient point system for kidney allocation.
We propose a scalable, data-driven method for designing national policies for the allocation of deceased donor kidneys to patients on a waiting list in a fair and efficient way. We focus on policies that have the same form as the one currently used in the United States. In particular, we consider policies that are based on a point system that ranks patients according to some priority criteria, e.g., waiting time, medical urgency, etc., or a combination thereof. Rather than making specific assumptions about fairness principles or priority criteria, our method offers the designer the flexibility to select his desired criteria and fairness constraints from a broad class of allowable constraints. The method then designs a point system that is based on the selected priority criteria and approximately maximizes medical efficiency -- i.e., life -- year gains from transplant -- while simultaneously enforcing selected fairness constraints.